


On the Way Down

by sowell



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sowell/pseuds/sowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Dean and Sam say, "Fuck hunting, let's go be dragons."</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Way Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_green_bird](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=the_green_bird).



> Written for the_green_bird for the 2013 spn_j2_xmas exchange on livejournal. Prompt: dragons!

Dean’s hair has a black-bullet glint in the morning sun.  
  
“It’s happening again,” Sam notes.  
  
“Oh, you think?” Dean says sarcastically. The skin of his arms has begun to split into patches.  
  
“When?” Sam asks.  
  
Dean shrugs, and the motion is like the twitch of a tail. “Soon.”  
  
Before the sun sinks that evening, Dean is gone, wings stretched like canopy over the fragile tree-lined horizon.

*****

Sam never sleeps when Dean is gone. It’s usually three days, sometimes four. Once it was a full week, and by the time Dean was Dean again, Sam had started to hallucinate shadow creatures in the crusty corners of his eyes, encroaching nightmares.  
  
It’s a punishment, he supposes. Dean is alone for those days, going god-knows-where doing god-knows-what, and sleeping through them feels like cheating. He works a job sometimes, if it’s straightforward, or does research. Occasionally he drives the Impala, grinding the gears and taking fast corners and leaving muddy boot prints on the rugs. He always vacuums up when he’s done, pats her and apologizes, but it feels like naughty freedom when Dean’s gone.  
  
And if he’s being honest with himself, the solitude is like a balm once in a while. Sometimes Dean will change when things are bad, when they’ve been arguing, and Sam will go from angry glances and clenched fists to blessed silence; no judgment, no yelling, no ticking jaws and cutting comments. Then Dean is back, and everything is forgiven in the relief.

*****

“What’s it like?” Sam asks.  
  
Dean shrugs, eyes shuttered. “Don’t remember. The change hurts, I guess. Then there’s wind and lift-off and – bam. I’m back here and I’m missing three days.”  
  
He’s lying, and Sam knows why. It’s not because it’s too painful to talk about, or because he doesn’t want to remember. It’s because he  _likes_  it. He likes it, and he guards it from Sam like a jealous dog, like Sam might try to take it from him.  
  
Sometimes Dean comes home with blood under his fingernails and his mouth blackened with fire. He sleeps for hours and hours, and even after he bathes the scent of blood and ash and crackling sunlight clings to him. Then there’s nothing to do but wait until it happens again.

*****

A spell is supposed to break when the caster is killed. That’s how it  _works_ , that’s the  _rule_ , goddammit. Except Dean’s sorceress, a thousand-year-old Irish witch with a grudge against John, has been skewered, torched, and buried for five years now. Sam can remember the way John had to pull him away from her destroyed alter, the way he kept smashing at the debris until blood ran into his eyes. If there was anything,  _anything_ , fucking with Dean in that shit pile of ancient wood and relics, Sam was going to tear it to pieces. They smashed everything in sight, then lit the place up.  
  
Then, the waiting. The hoping. The longest Dean had ever gone without changing had been a year. If they could make it a year and a day, then surely the curse was broken. If they could just make it….  
  
They made it two months. Sam woke one morning to see Dean soar past the window, arching away and out of sight.

*****

Sam takes a hunt while Dean is gone, because fuck dragons and their absentee bullshit. It’s a routine haunting, and Sam tells the family to clear out and come back in two days when their house is spirit-free. The youngest daughter waves out the back window of their station wagon as they drive past.  
  
Things go south pretty quickly after that.  
  
Still, it’s only when thing has its icy fingers wrapped around his throat that he really begins to panic. Because it’s a fucking lame way to go, and he can’t stop thinking that Dean will have to make up a more exciting story to tell other hunters, just to save face. And then there’s the girl, the little daughter in the station wagon, the fucking family who trusted Sam to get the job done. Instead they’re going to find a dead hunter and a still-haunted house and probably gain a whole new cadre of nightmares.  
  
Dean’s been gone for days, but a lifetime of habits is hard to ignore. Sam calls for him, desperately, silently, as his vision whites out.  
  
He wakes up when his head hits the wall. There’s a churning wind, and he realizes it’s coming from the thousand pounds of heat and fury that just crashed a hole in the side of the house. He’s a floor down and a hundred feet away from where he’d been pinned, and Dean is blocking out the sun, wings spread like hell gates. He’s hovering, knocking debris away from the jagged walls with every flap of his wings. He’s waiting for something, leashed fury and impatience, and it takes Sam a few, fuzzy moments to figure out what. The spirit flickers into existence next to him, murder still in its eyes, and Sam gets it. He scrambles to his feet and runs, leaps the loose plies of the wall with more energy than he thought he had, and lands on his knees on the dirt-packed grass outside the house.  
  
Dean screams, and fire erupts, lighting up the house instantly. Sam drags himself away from the heat, and by the time he looks back, the nearest wall has collapsed in on itself. The house is torched, and the haunted skull with it.  
  
Dean lands a car’s length away and levels Sam with a churning green look. He’s five times Sam’s size, but somehow he still looks like Dean. Tough leather exterior and grim face and somehow underneath,  _are you okay, are you hurt, fucking hell Sam_.  
  
Sam tries to stand, but his legs are like water. “Dean,” he tries to say, and chokes instead. His throat is raw from the smoke and the swelling bruises. He stretches out a hand, and Dean takes flight, up above the trees with one push of his wings.  
  
Sam watches him slice through the air and away. He sits in the dying heat until he can breathe again, and then he makes his way back to the Impala.  
  
Dean has a contact in the insurance business. Sam calls him and explains the situation as thoroughly as he can without mentioning dragons. The guy promises the house will be taken care of, although Sam can’t even imagine what kind of administrative dance that will require.  
  
“So where’s Dean?” he asks. “Big brother got you making his calls now?”  
  
“Something like that.” Sam manages a laugh.  
  
“Well, tell him to drop me a line some time.”  
  
“Right. Absolutely. Thanks again, man.”

*****

“Sorry,” he says weakly.  
  
The family stares mutely at the cinders of their house.  
  
“There’s money coming,” Sam says hastily. “And the spirit is gone, I swear.” The little girl is crying.  
  
He clears his throat and hands a slip of paper to the father. “Here’s a hotel you can stay at until the insurance kicks in. Free of charge.”  
  
The man stares at the address for too long, and Sam wonders if he’s in shock.  
  
“Sorry,” he offers again, and then takes refuge in the Impala.  
  
Dean slams his way through the hotel door two days later. His face is very pale and very angry, and Sam takes a step back without meaning to.  
  
“Look,” he starts.  
  
Dean slaps the side of his head and shoves him hard, and Sam braces himself for the punch. It doesn’t come, though. Dean backs away, jaw set.  
  
“What the hell were you thinking?”  
  
“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” Sam says, trying to keep his voice level. “I was just trying – ”  
  
Dean punches the wall in a sudden burst of violence, and Sam winces at the crack of bone. Dean doesn’t acknowledge it. He pushes past Sam, into the bathroom, and slams the door.

*****

“I know why you’re pissed,” Sam tells him. “I get it, okay? You feel guilty for not being here, because Dad brainwashed you into thinking you have to watch me every second of every –”  
  
“Oh my god, shut up,” Dean groans from the other bed. “Do we have to have this conversation at seven in the morning?”  
  
“Yes,” Sam says shortly. “Because every other time you’re either walking or flying away, and I need you to know – ”  
  
Dean sighs and sits up. His hair is ruffled in every direction, shirt creased around his waist, eyes squinty in the morning light. There are no scales, no claws, no otherworldly sense of majesty about him. It’s just Dean, and Sam’s heart clenches at the sudden precious realization, the fierce wish that it could always be like this.  
  
“Yeah, I feel guilty,” Dean says, voice raspy with sleep. “And it scares the fuck out of me. I can’t explain it. When I change, it’s like you’re the only part of me that’s still human. I can’t always remember what happens when I’m gone, but I know I’m not exactly rescuing puppies.  I’m a fucking monster, Sam. And I think if you got killed, I would just…”  
  
“What?”  
  
Dean’s mouth tips up ruefully. “Not come back. Fuck this life, and fuck hunting, and just… Sometimes I think you’re the only thing keeping me human anymore.”  
  
It’s so unexpected, and so unlike Dean, that it takes Sam a second to come up with a response. The words have to fight their way up through the tightness in his throat, the sudden rush of warmth, because sometimes Dean is an idiot and an asshole and the only brother Sam would ever want, all at once.  
  
Dean is looking at him side-eyed, shoulders tight and waiting, like Sam might reject him for confessing to being anything less than a perfect human, less than good one hundred percent of the time.  
  
“That’s sweet,” Sam manages. “You should put that on a Hallmark card.”  
  
“Shut  _up_.”  
  
“No, really. It’s – ”  
  
Dean flops back down and pulls the covers back up over himself.

*****

Dean’s confession keeps the peace between them, right up until the day Dean doesn’t come home.

*****

Dean’s stayed away before. A week, maybe. A week and a half. Never more. Sam lets the ticking clock of the motel room drive him slowly crazy while he eats takeout and attempts to distract himself with the shitty little television. Every time he hears a step outside the door, he fights the urge to run to the window and check.  
  
It takes exactly three weeks before Sam can’t stand the sight of Dean’s empty bed anymore. Dean came once when Sam was in trouble, and if putting himself in harm’s way is what it takes to get Dean’s lizard ass back in the Impala, Sam is willing to risk the older-brother-wrath that will surely come with it.  
  
It’s not difficult to find a hunt. There’s a notoriously haunted cabin less than fifty miles into the Maine wilderness. Sam drives the Impala there, radio on classic rock and Dean’s duffel packed away in the trunk. He doesn’t look anywhere but the road.  
  
It’s past midnight when he makes it to the cabin. He leaves everything in the car except lighter fluid, matches, and his gun. It’s pretty suicidal, but then – if Dean’s gone forever, who really gives a fuck about Sam’s safety, anyway?  
  
He feels a slight pang of guilt for not at least warning Bobby, but he shoves it aside. Bobby would just try and talk him out of it, and Sam needs courage for this, not reason.  
  
He figures Dean must have sensed his fear before, some kind of psychic dragon thing. The fear has to be real if it’s going to bring Dean home, so he steps inside the door, douses the entryway with lighter fluid, and tosses a match on it.  
  
Spirits don’t take very well to their homes being burned down, and this one is no exception. Sam feels an icy hand in his back within seconds, shoving him toward the flickering flames. Sam twists away, but he doesn’t move fast enough. The flames catch his arm, and he curses at the fierce pain.  
  
The spirit comes at him again. It was a man once, but that’s all Sam can make out. Now it’s barely a pair of eyes and wasted arms, reaching out for the person destroying its link to the living world.  
  
Sam didn’t bring salt or iron, so he shoots it instead, which has precisely zero effect. It knocks the gun out of his hand and tosses him into a wall, just inches from the flames.  
  
The full impact of the stupidity of this plan hits him just as Dean tears the roof off the place. Enormous claws snag in his hair and clothes and drag him up, over the gaping hole where the roof used to be, and drop him clear on the other side. The landing knocks his vision fuzzy for a moment, and he barely registers Dean bellowing enough fire onto the wooden remains to light it up like a torch. Sam doesn’t know what’s making his heart race more – his brush with death, or the sheer, terrifying power of Dean in this state. Dean, who will probably never be Dean again.  
  
Dean looks at him, and Sam knows he knows. That Sam couldn’t let him go. That Sam was willing to stoop to this.  
  
Dean turns his back, tail swinging, and tenses for lift-off.  
  
“Wait!” Sam cries, and Dean freezes.  
  
“That’s it? That’s fucking it? You’re not even going to stick around to see if I can help you, or change you back, or just….” Dean looks back over his shoulder, eyes swirling with something like regret, and Sam trails off. There is no cure. No changing it. They’ve both known it for a long time now.  
  
“Just…just hold on,” Sam says desperately. “If you can’t stay then…then take me with you.”  
  
He doesn’t realize he’s going to say it until it’s out, and second it’s left his lips he realizes he means it. The hunting, the Impala, the road, even the thought of a normal life don’t mean much when Dean’s not there.  
  
Dean swings around fully, and his penetrating stare is the dragon equivalent of disbelief. Sam can  _feel_  it, like a shudder.  
  
“I’m serious. I don’t care about…whatever it is you’re always too ashamed to tell me. I don’t give a shit. Take me with you and I promise I won’t say a word. I’ll…learn to fucking ride on your back if that’s what it takes. Come on, man. You can’t…don’t leave me here. It sucks. It seriously sucks.” The last part is a little hard to get out past the lump in his throat.  
  
Dean takes a creeping step toward him, then another. Sam stands his ground until he can feel Dean’s hot breath on his face. He reaches up and touches Dean’s scales, right under Dean’s eyes. It’s the first time he’s touched Dean like this, and it feels completely foreign and still completely Dean. It’s his brother in there.  
  
“It’s okay,” he says. “I don’t care about the stupid curse. Or anything, really. Just. Please.”  
  
Dean’s massive jaws open, and Sam’s t-shirt somehow gets caught up in Dean’s front fang.  
  
“Um,” he starts.  
  
Without prelude, Dean leaps into the air. Sam tries to jerk back, but he’s caught.  
  
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he manages. Dean’s wings are churning the night air, fanning the crackling flames of the cabin. Sam’s hair is in his eyes, but he can see the dark trees rushing past on either side.  
  
Dean’s breath is the only warm thing, and the hard ridges of his scales are reassuring rather than terrifying. Fire or knives or gun – Dean has only ever used his weapons to protect Sam.  
  
They’re getting too high, he realizes dimly. He’d never survive a fall.  
  
They clear the tree line, and Sam reaches up and clings, possibly to a flesh-ripping fang, and Dean shakes with something that Sam is pretty sure is laughter. They’re high now, almost to the clouds, and the cold wind is making Sam’s face numb.  
  
“If you drop me, I swear to god…”  
  
Dean flings him instead, and for a terrifying moment Sam sees his own death. Then his wings catch the wind and he’s soaring, high above Dean, struggling to keep up. There’s a fierce pain in the change – his arms stretch and spread, his legs lengthen and thicken, and his head feels like it might split. Then the pain is gone and he’s changed, he’s new. His claws tuck up under him, and he lowers his head to cut through the air better by instinct alone.  
  
Everything sharpens in his vision, and he realizes he can see for miles. He’s stronger than he’s ever been, and faster, and lighter. He sucks in a breath at the sheer power of flying. This was always the rest of the curse, he realizes, and he was never ready to see it.  
  
 _Amazing, right?_  He can hear Dean’s voice in his head, and his brother sounds smug.  
  
 _Slow the fuck down_ , Sam pants, and Dean laughs. Sam can see his own gold-tipped wings from the corner of his eye. He’s fucking soaring. He’s a goddamn gigantic mythical lizard, and Dean…Dean is right there with him.  
  
Dean dives abruptly, and Sam’s pretty sure he’s showing off. He levels off to Sam’s right.  
  
 _Having a little trouble keeping up over there?_  
  
 _You’ve had years of practice, dude. I’ve had about twelve seconds._  
  
Dean’s smiling. Sam can’t see it, but he can feel it. He can feel everything. The thin currents of air under his wings, the smell of a highway ten miles east, the quick dart of a fox in the brush just below them.  
  
 _Don’t worry, Sammy. I’ll teach you_ , Dean says.   _You’re not going anywhere_.


End file.
